[sustran] Re: GHMC Budget : SAVE THE HYDERABADI PEDESTRIAN FROM EXTINCTION

[Kanthi Kannan]

SAVE THE HYDERABADI PEDESTRIAN FROM EXTINCTION

Hyderabad: Is the GHMC Budget forward looking? Where is the poor pedestrian
in all this? How do the urban poor go to earn their livelihood? 

A Kilometre of 8 feet width footpath costs ONLY about 30 lakhs!! Can the
GHMC not afford to spend that money and save lives?? Basically if about 250
Crores are made available, then the entire city's footpaths can be made
walkable.

 

Regards

Kanthi Kannan

The Right to Walk Foundation

 

 

GHMC budget forward looking' 


Corporation's budget sees 8.4 p.c. hike from last year 

HYDERABAD: Economic slowdown notwithstanding, the Greater Hyderabad
Municipal Corporation, has pegged the next year's (2009-2010) budget outlay
at Rs. 3,159 crore, a clean 8.4 per cent hike from last year's Rs. 2,920
crore with special focus on housing and poverty alleviation.

Draft budget proposals released here on Thursday by Commissioner S.P. Singh
projected a capital expenditure of Rs. 2,160 crore, same as capital
receipts, with intent to go for 'innovative' methods to raise revenue from
property tax in processing Layout Regularisation (LRS) and Building
Penalisation Schemes (BPS) as well as PPP modes. Flanked by Special
Commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu and Additional Commissioner (Finance) B.
Ramesh Babu, the Commissioner claimed that the budget was "realistic and
futuristic" to propel the "right kind of balanced development". 

Separate budget 

A separate poverty alleviation budget was proposed for the first time with
an outlay of Rs. 870.53 crore (including Rs. 630 crore for housing) or 28
per cent of the overall budget for improving the lives of the poor.

"We were finding it difficult to track the spending on urban community
development earlier," pointed out Mr. Singh and expected the new move to
help identify and implement programmes for the poor better. "Our focus is to
make Hyderabad an international class mega city with inclusive growth as
infrastructure development also mean providing amenities like housing," he
said.

Major projects proposed are road restoration work at Rs. 354 crore, road
widening Rs. 171 crore, storm water drains Rs. 180 crore, BRTS Rs. 150
crore, MMTS Rs. 200 crore, River Musi Rs. 15 crore and so on. Accepting that
the recession was going to have its impact, he observed that revenues from
ads, stamp duty, building fees, etc., could be hit. However, he expects
substantial revenue from LRS and BPS processes as more than two lakh have
applied for these schemes. "Without increasing property tax, there will be
growth from assessment of new buildings, conversion from residential to
commercial and extra built up space declared under BPS once the court case
is over," he said.

 

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